I’ve been to anniversary parties where the two people just plain didn’t care much for each other.
Maybe they never really did care, but they somehow stayed together for years. Now what?
The NHL’s Arizona Coyotes are at a similar juncture. They celebrate 20 years in the Phoenix area this season, but still carry much of the uncertainty that came with them from Winnipeg in 1996.
Does Phoenix care? How about Glendale? The entire state of Arizona? Anyone?
Well, I care. I’ve followed the Coyotes through all these 20 years, through their re-naming from the Phoenix to Arizona Coyotes in 2014, to this anniversary. There are many more hockey fans in Arizona, too, who stick by the team through thick and (mostly) thin.
The volume needle for wider mainstream support, though, hasn’t moved forward far enough through these past two decades. The Coyotes still battle the perception that they will always be in a tight financial fight for survival.
Canadian media reports fuel much of that perception with often silly or poorly sourced stories. They seem determined to keep the “Coyotes are moving, really!” storyline active at all factual costs. (Canadian fans want another NHL hockey team, and many believe Arizona does not deserve “their” sport.)
The latest example: a proposed partnership with Arizona State to build a new arena for the Coyotes in Tempe fell through this past week, and within minutes a Canadian TV network released yet another “The Coyotes are moving, we really mean it this time!” story.
The Coyotes are not leaving Arizona. Really. Not this time or any other. They simply remain in much the same situation they were 20 years ago: without the arena they really want, in the Phoenix-area location they really want.
Many fans forget that the Coyotes began their tenure in the Valley of the Sun with seven seasons at the old America West Arena, a place designed for basketball and featuring some obstructed-view seats for hockey.
A move to the new Glendale arena complex during the 2003-04 season was supposed to solve many of the franchise problems, except for one insurmountable obstacle: the arena was (and still is, even after much population growth) in the wrong place for a majority of Phoenix-area fans.
A suitable home arena is just one from a stack of 20-year challenges for the Coyotes. There was a curious and unfruitful coaching stint by the great Wayne Greztky from 2005-2009. The steady leadership of the tough and effective subsequent head coach Dave Tippett, who remains at the helm, corrected that detour.
The team declared bankruptcy in 2009 and then waded through years of legal maneuvers and disputes involving team owners, the NHL, prospective team buyers, and seemingly just about everybody else. But new owners were found.
The Coyotes earned the playoffs in five of their first six seasons in Arizona, but qualified only three times in the next 13 years. They’ve only won two playoff series, and one divisional crown. This year they are dead last in the division, and have the second-worst record in the league.
Ah, but new team ownership finally does appear stable, the direction for the hockey operations and personnel look more fruitful, and the newly formed minor league affiliate in Tucson appears to be a hit.
It is the commitment to Tucson that truly sends a positive message to the hockey world. The Coyotes invested several million dollars and brought an AHL team to Tucson, and has worked closely with the Roadrunners to create a unified organization. The Coyotes prospects working in Tucson train in the same system as the NHL club, they interact often with Coyotes personnel, and they go up and down often to play with the parent team.
The Tucson Roadrunners are the greatest evidence that the Coyotes are not leaving Arizona, and their investment is already paying dividends on the NHL ice, too.
Now back to that pesky new arena deal. Do enough sports fans in Arizona care enough to make a permanent Coyotes home feasible? You bet there are. Well, actually, the team ownership, the NHL front office, and this guy here in Tucson continue to bet there are enough fans.
Happy anniversary, Coyotes. No one said it was going to be easy here in the desert, and we all know that everything worth winning in hockey is difficult.
